[110] [I may here draw the reader’s attention to an interesting work, (to be more completely alluded to in the sequel,) lately published by the Rev. Charles Forster. The One Primeval Language. Part I. The Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai.—K. R. H. M.]
[111] Monuments, Part II., plates 2, 116, 137, 140, 152, III., 28.
[112] [Bunsen, vol. i. p. 400, and see Lepsius, Ueber den Ersten Aegyptischen Götterkreis, p. 30.—K. R. H. M.]
[113] [From its great length, I have found it necessary to reserve a note on this passage until the Appendix, Note A., where the reader will find it.—K. R. H. M.]
[114] On this point I find all the most important voices unanimous. Robinson, in particular, has the merit of having done away with many old prejudices of this kind. But Burckhardt had already allowed himself to be so little influenced in his judgment by the authority of tradition, that he did not hesitate to find a reason for the erection of the convent of Sinai on Gebel Mûsa on strategical grounds. (Trav. in Syr. p. 609.)
[115] The name Firân, formerly Pharan, is certainly the same as the Biblical Paran; but it is equally sure that this name had shifted its application in the locality. All other comparisons of names are totally unsatisfactory.
[116] One of the two wells seems to go back to the time of the building of the convent; it is the smaller one of the two. The deep, principal well, which gives the most and the best water, seems to have been first sunk in 1760, by order of an English Lord. (Ritter, p. 610.)
[117] Burckhardt also expressly observes, that there is no good pasturage in the neighbourhood of the convent, where the rather more numerous little fountains would almost allow us to consider the soil to be moisture. See Bartlett’s impression in a subsequent place.
[118] So the Arabs unanimously assured us, see also Burckhardt, p. 625, and Ritter, p. 769. Lord Lindsay here found “a small wood of tarfa trees, in which blackbirds were singing, and farther on some palm plantations.” It was at the same outlet of the valley “where Seetzen first had the pleasure of gathering much manna off the tarfa bushes and eating it; here he found the ripe fruits of the wild caper bush, which were eatable like fruit.”
[119] [Note B, Appendix.—K. R. H. M.]